Regional roundup for Tuesday
Cannabis sativa. Photo: Manuel Martin Vicente, Creative Commons, some rights reserved
Last month, Essex County’s Animal Cruelty Task Force seized forty-one severely malnourished horses from property owner Shelley Wing. Now, some attorneys say this should not have been handled at the town level. One attorney believes Wing was denied the right of due process, and that the animals are still legally hers.
It didn’t take long after Apple released its new iPhone 5S, which features a fingerprint scanner, for critics to point out that the scanner can be easily hacked into. One response to that criticism comes from the Potsdam-based NexID Biometrics, which develops software that distinguishes fake fingerprints from real ones.
On Monday, a Washington County committee heard a proposal to start a push for state legalization of the growing of industrial hemp. The committee didn’t move forward with the proposed legislation, but are researching how the ability to grow industrial hemp in the agricultural county could affect the local economy. “I think it’s worth investigating,” said Sara Idleman, chairwoman of the Agriculture, Planning and Tourism Committee.
And today Governor Cuomo launched the Start-Up NY program, an initiative that will create tax-free zones to attract and grow new businesses across the state.
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I absolutely love the new interest that folks have in fiber….
Research says that New York spends a half billion dollars on marijuana prohibition per year.
In the state of Washington (where marijuana is legal) 12.84% of adults smoke marijuana. In New York 12.83% of adults smoke pot.
If you compare 10,000 people from New York and 10,000 people from the state of Washington, there would be 1,284 pot smokers in the Washington group, and 1,283 pot smokers in the New York group. That raging success only costs us a 500 million dollars a year!
Did I mention many local schools in our area don’t have functioning libraries any more?
“One attorney believes Wing was denied the right of due process, and that the animals are still legally hers.”
That attorney works for the National Animal Interest Alliance. An organization that presents itself as an animal welfare group, but that is really a front group for animal agribusiness, breeders, fur farmers, vivisectors, etc.
They support (or have lobbied against laws that would restrict) horse slaughter, puppy mills, animal testing, cruel farming practices, and are (or were) associated with a company that is known to purchase shelter animals to supply classroom biology dissections.
They actively fight against efforts that attempt to improve animal welfare, including, apparently, the seizing of starving and neglected animals (one poor horse could not be saved and died after the seizure, and other corpses were found at the property) from a repeat offender.
It is interesting that they decided to throw their weight behind this case. But now you know their motivation!
“According to the State Unified Court System, town courts such as the one in Essex that is handling the Wing case “hear civil lawsuits involving claims of up to $15,000.”
Yeah, but this is a criminal case, not a civil one. And leaving an abused animal in the hands of its abuser pending the outcome of a court case doesn’t make much sense to me … What if it was a child? Should we leave the kid with an abusive parent because that parent hasn’t been convicted in a court of law yet, when there is strong and immediate evidence of severe neglect? I don’t think horses that are half starved should stay in the custody of their owner for months or years while lawyers who specialize in protecting the rights of animal abusers drag out the case.